It is known in the drilling art, to provide automatic drilling machines with constant velocity speed control apparatus to regulate the speed of drill feeds. A constant velocity speed control apparatus controls the feeding speed of a drill, to prevent heavy impact of the drill when it is advanced into a workpiece. An automatic drilling machine which reciprocates a drill bit, to feed it in advancing steps, alternated with retraction steps to remove cuttings or chips, is described as doing "woodpecker drilling", or simply, "peck drilling". Heretofore, feed controls have been provided for automatic drills which control the advancing movement of a drill so that when it finishes a retraction movement and commences an advancing step, the drill will pick up the drilling action and start feeding into the workpiece at the same spot where the drill retracted from, to permit the chips, from the prior advancing drill movement, to be removed. A prior art feed control for an automatic drilling machine carrying out a "peck drilling" operation is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,680,970. A disadvantage of the reciprocating drill feed control apparatus illustrated in said patent is that it is expensive to make because of the many parts involved. Another disadvantage is that in order to operate with a constant velocity speed control apparatus, the constant velocity speed control apparatus of said patent must be provided with a hardened rod, on which the feed control checking device is mounted.